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Sep 19, 2011

Weapons & Warriors: The Katara of the Rajput

Art by TL Jeffcoat

This is one of my favorite weapons in the Rajput arsenal. Its design is pretty simple, but the weapon itself is far from simple to use effectively. The Rajput carried these weapons as a form of self-defense and status. Sometimes inaccurately referred to as a bundi blade, these deadly daggers were the fiercest purely offensive style weapons ever used by the Rajput. Training of this weapon involved dual wielding techniques and was a style of martial arts all its own. Improper training of this weapon left a warrior vulnerable to attack, but once trained, the dual wielding Rajput was a force to be reckoned with. The Rajput hunted tigers with these blades. Killing a tiger with such a purely offensive and short ranged weapon would be a boost in status for a Rajput, marking him without question one of the bravest and most skilled warriors in the land.The Katara was designed as a thrusting blade, with an H-shaped handle and a wide blade that extended from the fist. These steel blades varied in length, usually between one foot and 3 feet (one meter). Sometimes the blade was widened and split to create a double pointed tip. In southern India it was often curvy, and there were even designs that were wavy, which allowed it to be more effective as a slashing weapon. There wasn’t much consideration for self-defense involved in the design, so the warrior had to rely on his martial arts skills and agility to get in close to his opponent.

What makes this short blade so dangerous is the power of its thrust. With the design made so that when the Rajput struck, he was able to put his weight into the blow. The combined force of the jab from a katara and the Rajput’s strength was powerful enough to easily slice into chainmail, and was even able to penetrate plate armor. The blades of the katara were made thick to avoid breaking or bending when striking. A normal sword blade could not survive the force of a Rajput’s body weight delivered into each stab. Some of the original designs of the katara included a leaf shaped cover of the back of the handle to protect the fist, but this was discarded in later models.

Art by TL Jeffcoat

There are several versions of katara that were designed as novelties for the British in the 1900’s. One of these designs included the scissor blade, which appeared as a single blade, until the handle was squeezed and the blades would separate and form scissors. This was never actually used in combat although it might have still been deadly. There are also versions that had two smaller blades that would pop out of the side of the katara’s main blade or split and reveal a third blade hidden inside.

Another set of katara were designed with a pistol installed into the handle to deliver a kill shot after a thrust. The Rajput never used these in actual combat either.

I hope you enjoyed this
edition of Weapons and Warriors, click here to view the entire catalog of
weapons and cultures. Thank you, see you next week.

Disclaimer

All photographs and artwork on this blog are owned by TL Jeffcoat or Steven DeVon Jones, the only exceptions being the background, book covers or movie posters linked from Photobucket, and the photos used from the WANACommons or Wikipedia which are all labeled as such. If you would like to use any of the artwork, please let TL Jeffcoat know and he will more than likely oblige.

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